by Darryl Cunningham (Avery Hill)
ISBN: 978-1-917355-33-9 (TPB), 978-1-917355-39-1 (Digital edition)
Multi-skilled raconteur, artist and documentarian Darryl Cunningham was born in 1960, lived a pretty British life (didn’t we all?) and graduated from Leeds College of Art. A regular on the Small Press scene of the 1990s, his early strips appeared in legendary paper-based venues including Fast Fiction, Dead Trees, Inkling, Turn and many others. In 1998, he & Simon Gane crafted Meet John Dark for the much-missed Slab-O-Concrete outfit – and it remains one of my favourite books of the era. You should track it down or agitate for a new edition.
Briefly sidelining comics as the century closed, Cunningham worked on an acute care psychiatric ward: a period informing 2011 graphic novel Psychiatric Tales, a revelatory inquiry into mental illness delivered as cartoon reportage.
As well as crafting web comics for Forbidden Planet and personal projects Uncle Bob Adventures, Super-Sam and John-of-the-Night or The Streets of San Diablo, he’s been consolidating a pole position in the field of graphic investigative reporting; specifically in science history, economics and socio-political journalism with books like Science Tales, Supercrash: How to Hijack the Global Economy, Graphic Science: Seven Journeys of Discovery, The Age of Selfishness: Ayn Rand, Morality and the Financial Crisis, Putin’s Russia: The Rise of a Dictator and Billionaires: The Lives of the Rich and Powerful.
Here, however, in a deeply personal extended project, Cunningham returns to his fantasy drama roots with a tribute to Jack Kirby’s wildest imaginings and cosmic epics: a near therapeutic exercise in personal creativity eked out in the quiet moments of the last three years.
Unleashed here is a visual feast of all-action multiversal mayhem, bound in family ties and comprising a chase to save everything that is. In the way are a maelstrom of philosophical betrayals and endless edge-of-disaster clashes, confrontations and revelations…
It begins in 5025 as coldly emotionless scientist John of the Night observes three millennia of history and notices mounting anomalies rippling out from the 1960s and endangering not one timeline but all the universes in creation. ‘Part One: Bullet from a Gun’ details how he bolts from his station defending multiversal centre point Far Eternity to face fanatical rebirth cult The Perfection after learning that they are manipulating realities to murder God and reboot His flawed creation to replace it with a multiverse more to their own perverse tastes. They had obviously already got to the science sentinel’s immediate supervisor His Infernal Radiance Lord Scarcasticus, so after being told to leave the problem alone, John goes rogue…
His decision is greatly affected by his daughter Ayshea who hands him a message and package: something that he will entrust to her at some future date, and whilst he was/will be wearing his awesome black Warsuit… and that’s when a flotilla of ships materialise to obliterate the orbital Watch Station…
On the run, John & Ayshea translate to a refuge universe which unfortunately alerts her wicked mother Medea the Witch Queen who joins the pursuit, abducts John and sets her warrior goon/current lover Bill on him. The Witch Queen still seeks to possess and sacrifice her own daughter in support of vile plans to live forever, but these are temporally and temporarily thwarted when Ayshea spectacularly shows up to rescue her dad, prior to landing in a random dimension where nobody can find them.
Of course, they were expected…
Taking control of the Golden Bullet cast to kill God, father & daughter take off again, battling every step of the way against soldiers, monsters, brutes and demons in ‘Part Two: Bullet from a Gun’ as we gain insights into the motives of the other side, glimpsing their view of the history of everything that is… but should not be…
The fugitives ultimately recruit untrustworthy Medea and manage to warn God, but his policy on non-interference is so steadfast and ironclad that he will do nothing to help them or himself…
The helter-skelter race against times culminates in cosmic confrontation as ‘Part Three: The Hand of God’ grants devoted science hero John a sight of the true way things are following the arrival of divine assassin Loman The Vengeance whose murder-mission must not succeed. Forced into precipitate action, our technician troubleshooter embraces fully the way of the warrior… and that’s when things get really wild and John finally meets his maker…
Supplemented by text additions Outro and Acknowledgements plus incisive insights and context courtesy of A Q&A with author Darryl Cunningham, this manic and expansive collation was inspired by King Kirby’s grand transgalactic, time-bending sagas: light-heartedly mixing myth, multiversal mayhem and celestial musings with themes of sacrifice, destiny, innate heroism and the indifference of higher powers. A witty, archly humorous sideral odyssey featuring a unique family fiercely finding each other against all odds, John of the Night is reality-rending fun as only comics can deliver.
© Darryl Cunningham 2026. All rights reserved.
John of the Night will be released on September 2nd 2026 and is available for pre-order now
Today in 1929 veteran illustrator Don Perlin (Werewolf by Night, Moon Knight, Ghost Rider, Solar, Man of the Atom, Bloodshot, Transformers) was born, as was Underground commix artist turned publisher Denis Kitchen (Mom’s Homemade Comics, The Comix Book, The Bugle-American, founder of Comic Book Legal Defense Fund) in 1946 and comic book creator Phil Hester (Green Arrow, Flash, The Wretch, The Crow, Swamp Thing) in 1966. Quintessentially British cartoonist Carl Giles died today in 1995.